It has now been 48 hours since last contact was made with Challenger.  Later this morning the glider team will be sitting down for a conference call to discuss what our possible courses of action are.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Since yesterday when Challenger reset underwater and entered the mission initial.mi, we have not had any contact with the glider. It has now been close to 40 hours since last contact was made and there have been a few ideas bounced around as to what could have happened. One of which that seems to be most plausible is that the mission Challenger entered after resetting was a bad file resulting in the glider entering an infinite loop of sorts that prevents the glider from successfully surfacing and calling back to the COOL Room. For now, we have a number of people waiting for a connection to try and grab a hold of the glider and change the mission.  We will update as more develops.

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As I mentioned a few days ago, Challenger was just a short ways away from crossing the Prime Meridian.  However, mysteriously as we were just 6 km from crossing to the other side, Challengers computer reset at about 200m.

The figure below shows that on the dive of Challenger's 3rd yo of the segment, she dove to about 200m before the computer shut off.

The computer then clicked back on causing Challenger to return to the surface where she began running the mission Initial.mi before returning on its way.

At this point in time we do not know for sure what will happen but we will make sure to keep everyone updated.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Challenger is stepping her way higher up along the VIG ladder as she has now flown over 3,000 km in contribution to the Challenger Mission.  On the scale of the whole plan, 3,000 may not seem like much, but every obstacle we encounter is a valuable learning experience that we will be able to look back on

Another feat that Challenger is on the verge of accomplishing is crossing the Prime Meridian, being the first of our Global Class Gliders to do so.

Looking at Dave's velocity plot, we have continued to see a decline in our speed in recent days, however the slope of the line is decreasing, signifying that we will level off and possibly spike back up again soon.

To the North, Silbo has been issued a new way point after suggestion from Antonio:

After the slow progress Silbo has been suffering over the past weeks, we have decided to move the way point to the North, hopefully allowing us to take advantage of the northern component of the currents flow similar to what we have done with Challenger previously.  We hope that this will now speed us up a bit so we can make better progress towards the Caribbean.

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I just want to leave everyone with a quick update on the status of the gliders

Silbo is continuing to find his way through the desert as he fights the strong head current that has been quite persistant in flowing to the east rather than in the direction we had hoped for towards the Caribbean.  As he stands now, there is roughly 1400 km between his last surfacing and Barbados, and with batteries that are still showing enough juice to last us through the end of the year, it merely comes down to finding that ideal path to the west.

Challenger on the other hand is still flying well, with the way point on Ascension, she is continuing to beat her own rough path to the northwest using the northern component of the currents that we were dealt.

As the currents have become a little less favorabel we saw the glider velocities drop down a bit.  However they seem to be leveling off at the moment so we shouldn't loose too much of our speed.  As of now, we are still maintaining a nice >25 km/ day which will always be useful as we race the battery life on our way across the Southern Atlantic Basin.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

So after dropping Antonio off at Newark Airport this evening, we are coming to a close on a very interesting and productive week.

First off, on Wednesday Antonio graciously accepted his award for Technological Excellence at IMCS from Dean Ludescher

Antonio then gave an inspirational speech to the 70 students of the Ocean Observatories class

Then the students had the opportunity to share their research projects from this semester ranging from the spring bloom off of the Mid Atlantic Bight to the migration of mega fauna along the proposed Challenger Tracks and hazards they may cause to the audience of Antonio, their professors and deans.

Antonio also has made plans to return to Rutgers for a period this fall to collaborate on some more in depth research with the gliders and Challenger mission.  And finally, Antonio spent quite a bit of time with our Hurricane group in which he proposed to make a simulation of the movements of Hurricane Sandy in Pinzon for both the Ocean and Atmosphere.

Now moving on to the spark behind our strong friendship with Antonio: our long duration gliders

Challenger seems to have maxed out the potential for surfing that semi favorable current and for the moment has lost some her momentum, slowing down from just over 30 km a day back down towards 28 km/day.

Antonio and his team also integrated a new tool into Pinzon, coloring the gliders course with the gliders velocity.  So looking at the image below of Challenger's path, we can see how over the course of the previous week the velocity had increased from blues (20-25 km/day) up to greens (~30 km/day)

Looking at the form of the currents in our location, it looks like they are continuing to flow in the north-northeast direction, however they have lost momentum themselves which we hypothesize is the reasoning behind Challengers drop in speed.

To the North, Silbo continues to struggle as the head current refuses to give him any leeway.  There actually seems to be a strong subsurface current that is flowing at about a 70˚ difference than the weaker currents at the surface, resulting in Silbo's slow progress.  We can only hope that the strong west ward currents to the north west will provide us with some well needed help when we finally break through this poor current.

Looking back on the progress Silbo has made with the help of Antonio's new tool, we can see how hard a time Silbo has had over the past few months as the path that represents the velocity of the glider has spent a lot more time in the blue than we would have hoped.   Now we can only hope that we can increase and maintain the speed in the near future with the aid of these new visualization tools and our continued collaboration.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

Great news everyone; Antonio has landed safely in the USA!

As we have explained previously, Antonio has won the RUCOOL Technical Achievement Award for Cyber Navigation, effectively breaking down barriers and revolutionizing the way gliders will be piloted in the future with the Pinzon 4D visualization platform.  Click here for more info

Antonio will be visiting through Thursday May 2,  during which we will collaborate on piloting, Pinzon, and future projects, Antonio will be presented with his award, and he will take part in the final presentation ceremony for the Ocean Observatory class.

But back to our gliders

Challenger is continuing to gain speed, as she has just broken 30 km/day on the last surfacing!

Although the currents still aren't completely favorable, the wiggle room we have given her with the distant way point has allowed her to take advantage of the northern component of the northeast flowing current.  And as this current continues to rotate further to the north east, we will surf it at an angle and take advantage of this increase in speed.

As for Silbo to the north, he is continuing to fight on as we still lack a favorable current below the surface.  Looking at the Pinzon data, we can see that the depth average currents are largely being affected by the depths from about 200-1000 flowing out to the northeast

However there does seem to be some relief on the horizon as that subsurface current seems to weaken towards the north western edge of the cube and rotates to the north.  Hopefully over the next week or so Silbo will be able to catch up to these favorable waters and we will be able to  surf the current like Challenger instead of being in constantly battle as Silbo has since October.

Force Wind Sea & Honor

As we finish the final preparations for Antonio's award ceremony and travel plans for this weekend, our Global Glider fleet continues to make progress flying the North and South Atlantic Basins.

To the North, Silbo is chugging along, slowly making his way towards the Caribbean:

Now just under 1500 km away, Silbo has his sights on the finish line and is continuing to battle through the currents towards the tropical shores of Barbados.

Looking to Pinzon's visualization of the HyCOM currents (above and below), the waters at depth continue to be largely unfavorable as they flow to the Northeast, slowing our progress towards the Caribbean to our west. We can only hope that these negative currents do not persist much longer as Silbo has now been flying for over 270 days, 50 more than it took Scarlet to cross from NJ to Spain!

To the South, Challenger is continuing to be a beast as she is now cruising through the waters of the South Atlantic

Below, we can see that as the currents are continuing to swing further into our favor, our speed has dramatically increased, shown by the spike in the blue line.

With the depth average currents over the top 1000m of the water column now showing a northern component to the eastern flow that Challenger has been fighting, we have been able to take advantage of even that little extra push allowing speeds of over 25 km/day!  These speeds, if we can maintain them could get us to Brazil somewhere around December, leaving us with a good two months of wiggle room with our battery packs.

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So towards the middle of last week after our progress continued to dwindle due to the poor currents flowing to the south east, Dave and I move the way point back to the north east, right on top of Ascension Island.  This location we were hoping would give 29 enough wiggle room to get going in the right direction without trying to overcompensate too much for the poor currents, effectively reducing our speeds.

Now after a few days, it looks like it is finally starting to pay off:

After the dip we suffered towards the end of last week, Challenger's velocity is beginning to bring itself back up as the currents slowly spin around to the east from southeast.

Looking to Pinzon above, we are hoping that the new way point will allow us to swing around to the north and then north west the as oscillation of the currents becomes more favorable as time goes on.

Looking to the engineering data that Dave keeps us up to date on (seen in the figures above and below) we can see that as our speeds increase, Challenger is continuing to glide smoothly through the water. Above we can see the smooth profiles of our yo's as we dive to 1000m and then climb back up to just over 100m from the surface as to avoid the productive waters at the surface.

Below we can see that with the way point back to the west, our heading error has dropped back to acceptable levels from the compass issues we were having earlier in the mission.

To the North, Silbo continues to push westward parallel to the equator as we set our eyes on our new caribbean goal.  Now just 1500 km from Barbados, we expect that Silbo could make it there as early as late July.  Once there he will receive a much deserved rest before getting new batteries and setting sale once more to continue his course along the North Atlantic Gyre.

Unfortunately, we are still seeing unfavorable currents at depth that want to push Silbo back to the north east direction.

We can also see that after everything Silbo has been through, he is showing signs of being tired.  He is flying much slower than 29 and the flight through the water is much less smooth.  The pump also continues to move multiple times on dives and climbs indicating there may be an issue that will need to be resolved after we recover

Force Wind Sea & Honor

So last night Silbo hit another mile stone in the Challenger Mission, completing his 10,000 kilometer at sea!

Since June 2011, this brave little droid has been through a lot, flying 3 segments totaling over 500 days at sea and over 10,000 kilometers, all while providing our team valuable data and experiences that in turn are helping us lay the frame work as we build for the inauguration of the full Challenger  Mission in the coming years.

Looking to the figure above, Antonio and his group at the University of Las Palmas has now made an operational version of the our 4-D Pinzon ocean model visualization platform for Silbo and HyCOM for the North Atlantic.  With this tool, we can now see how different a picture there is between models that show what is happening at the surface versus what occurs at depth. Looking to the depths, we can see how below the surface layer, the landscape is much different as the current is moving North- Northeast instead of Northwest as the surface models and drift suggest.

As we stand now, Silbo is roughly 1,600 km from Barbados where we have recently begun to make new contacts.  This leaves Barbados as a good potential end point for Silbo's mission at which point will be breaching 1 year at sea.

To the South, Challenger is continuing to battle on as she fights towards the new way point to the north.

HyCOM visualized in Pinzon in the figures above and below is proving to be pretty accurate as the currents at depth match up quite well with the depth average currents being recorded by Challenger, both showing an overall flux to the east.  Looking ahead however, it looks like we are on the verge of encountering a large warm eddy to our north west which will at first swing the currents to the northeast, then to the north, and eventually favorable to the north east over the coming week.  This we hope will bring our speed back up well into the  higher 20 kms/ day as we have slowed a bit in this unfavorable current.

As this day comes to an end, Challenger is still 1200 km from St Helena, 2400 km from Ascension, and 4,800 km from Brazil.  Still a long ways away from the finish line, but continue to fly strong.

Force Wind Sea & Honor